Making your own - Casting Slugs and 380

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fishindad
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Making your own - Casting Slugs and 380

Post by fishindad » Mon Jul 02, 2012 12:02 pm

I have been trying to getting into casting for some time now. Recently, through some acquisitions I have started making my own bullets. I have been collecting supplies for about 2-3 years now and finally had the right things to start. Its hard to believe that I bought the lead pot frankly almost 3 years ago from Cabelas. (Note - I posted earlier about casting jigs. I did these all on the same day)

I will be reloading these sometime next week. The bullet molds used were the 1oz 12 gauge Lee and the 102 gr Lee 356-102-1R.

Safety is key. Here are the big ones...
1) Good ventilation. Use a cross blowing fan.
2) Wear gloves, jeans or apron and covered shoes.
3) Water is BAD. Do not let water come near the melted lead.
4) Do NOT eat or drink while you are doing this.
5) Wash your hands well after touching ANY lead. Frankly, we should all do this after even touching slip sinkers.
6) Be organized. You don't want to be running back and forth trying to find something and leave the lead unattended.

**** These are suggestions. Anyone doing this should do alot of research and ask alot of questions.

Ok with the above disclaimers..... Here we go. Overall I really enjoyed it. I acquired lead through various sources, made ingots and was ready to go.

First step: Melt the lead.

I had a thermometer and the spout seemed to work best at setting it 5-6 which was about 600 degrees. I put about 5 small ingots in and let it all melt. That took about 15 minutes.

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Second step: Mix the lead and skim impurities.

I dont have a picture for this but, the important part is you will have a sludge on the top. pull it off with a dedicated spoon and mix the lead. Fluxing the lead is really what I should have done here. By mixing sawdust and letting it rise to the top, it makes it easier to get the sludge out. I have also read that leaving a layer of burned sawdust on the top of the lead, helps prevent the oxidation. Regardless, I did not do that this time, and things seemed to be jsut fine.

Third step: Smoke the mold cavities and then heat the mold

Use a lighter to get carbon on the cavities. This will help in the release process. Place the mold on top of the pot for a few minutes. Casting into a cold mold will cause the lead to cool too quickly. -- yes this is a fishing mold. I was casting multiple items that day! :-)

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Fourth step: Place spout into the hole of the cavity and pull lever.

Pour evenly and do not stop until you see the cavity fill up. If you stop and start, the mold will not fill out correctly.

Fifth step: Count to 5 then hit the sprue plate with a wood dowel.
Put the sprue in the pile to be remelted!

Sixth step: Open mold and dump molded items on a folded towel.

--- Start process again until you get the total quantity you want!


When you get done, (after they have cooled) it should look something like this.

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Fishindad
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Re: Making your own - Casting Slugs and 380

Post by pandaxmx » Mon Jul 02, 2012 2:28 pm

That is a Great Start, and seems you have all the steps , except one , unlike a fishing sinker, the finished bullet should not have any rinkles, and lub groves should be well defined... the rinklesa are due to lead being either too hot or not hot enough,,, while your lead is melting in the pot place your molds accross the top of the pot just so the metal of the mold gets hot, not the wood, smoking is not nessary, but I do use a lighter just before poring into the first batch to get the mold even hotter... dispose of any bullet that has any voids in it, also check your weight of the bullets see if they are what they should be, I usually don't worry if they are 1 or 2 +/- but the more they are off the amount of powder will vary... I hope this helps... you have done a great job so far.....Keep it up
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Re: Making your own - Casting Slugs and 380

Post by fishindad » Mon Jul 02, 2012 2:34 pm

Yup. Worse case, some of these will go right back in and be melted again. Thanks for the encouragement!
The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing. ~Babylonian Proverb

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Re: Making your own - Casting Slugs and 380

Post by fishindad » Mon Jul 02, 2012 3:09 pm

I did some research and this is the information I came up with. I was WAY low on my temps.
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If you're using a Lee mold, you'll need to run your mold temp higher, than you would with a quality mold from one of the vendors on here.
Must be the cheaper aluminum Lee uses vs other mold makers.
Play with the mold temp, and then you might be able to drop your melt temp, so you're not losing metals like tin thru oxidation.
I run my Lee and Lyman pots at 675-700 depending on outside air temp, and i'll cast till the sprue takes longer than 6 sec to solidify, then I'll back it down till it takes about 4 sec to solidify.
I let my molds preheat on a hotplate, while my pots are heating up. I keep the temp on med/low.
The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing. ~Babylonian Proverb

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Re: Making your own - Casting Slugs and 380

Post by 30.06 » Mon Jul 02, 2012 8:09 pm

i just recently got some molds with the purchase of a muzzleloader from a friends father. i am interested in learning how to do this as i think it would be cheaper than buying maxi minnie or round balls. i got 6 molds i think, and would be interested in using the .50 cal ones for the muzzleloader. the others i would like to sell. not sure what size they are. if your interested in them let me know, would probly sell em cheap, and would maybe even let them go free for some muzzleloading projectiles.
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Re: Making your own - Casting Slugs and 380

Post by fishindad » Mon Jul 02, 2012 9:18 pm

PM sent
The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing. ~Babylonian Proverb

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